


Unsteady Aim

by ScorchedAlpine



Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Aliens, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Insecurity, Past Drug Addiction, Shaky Hands, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:20:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22793140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScorchedAlpine/pseuds/ScorchedAlpine
Summary: (Whumptober Prompt #1, Shaky Hands)Oliver's down for the count, maybe down forever, and it falls to Roy and Jason to make sure Star City isn't torn apart. It would be a lot easier if his hands would just stop shaking.
Relationships: Roy Harper & Jason Todd, Roy Harper & Oliver Queen
Series: Whumptober 2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638682
Kudos: 46





	Unsteady Aim

His hands are shaking.

It’s a shock when he realizes why his aim is off. Roy Harper’s hands don’t just shake. He can hit a dime with his eyes closed by the sound alone. He’s kept on after getting shot, stabbed, electrocuted, firing arrow after arrow until he wins or dies, and nothing has managed to kill him yet. But his hands won’t stop trembling as he nocks another arrow, breathing out shakily as he lets it fly and nearly misses.

The cognitive dissonance is so insane it feels like he’s watching from someone else’s eyes. Like it’s not his own fingers that are quivering, with the scar on the first knuckle of his middle finger from the time he sliced it on an arrow.

He’d just been starting out as Oliver’s apprentice. Secretly so nervous that he was going to miss something that would get them hurt that he’d cut himself on the edge of an arrowhead checking it over for damages, earning himself the tiny silvery scar. The first of many and arguable the least painful.

The last time he shook this badly, it was from fear toxin, him and Jay locked in the apartment with the dog to wait it out as the antidote ran through their systems. The time before that, withdrawal. He shoves the thought into the back of his brain and locks the door on it. That period of his life would always be a part of him, but it didn’t mean it was a part he liked to think about.

Oliver could die.

Oliver could die, and they’d never have made up. Oliver could die thinking that Roy hated him. He did, and he didn’t, and the contradiction clashed in his head until it made him feel like he was going to be sick.

No time for that. Duck and roll, run for cover and send an arrow into the eye of another alien. Breathe and fight and bleed because that was what he’d been put on this earth to do and he wasn’t done yet.

He hadn’t even been aiming for the eye, but he couldn’t stop fucking shaking. Willing to take what he could get for now.

Would he ever want him there? Roy didn’t belong in the waiting room for Oliver Queen. He wasn’t his apprentice anymore, wasn’t his ward, wasn’t even his friend at that point. They hadn’t spoken in years. But the knowledge that he might not make it felt like someone twisting a knife in his gut. Back and forth, the whisperings of the phone call from Dinah bubbling up in his head. She’d had to go through Batman to get to Jason to get to him. Too hard yet too easy.

He can hear the crack of Jason’s pistols from a block over. Oliver would probably be pissed that he’d brought the Red Hood into Star City. Hell, he’d probably be pissed that Arsenal was back. For how severely an arrow could shred through muscle and shatter bone, Oliver really had a thing against killing.

There was a momentary lull in the attack. The calm before the storm, or in this case the continuation of the hurricane. He crouched behind a parked car, careful to keep his head lower than the top of the doors as his boots crunched on the scattering of broken glass that used to be the windows. It smelled like fire and blood and panic.

Oliver would be fine. He was going to wake up, because he was too goddamn stubborn not to. He was going to wake up, and they were going to win, and then Oliver could yell at him for being irresponsible later.

Hell, he’d even take the ‘I didn’t train you for this’ lecture on not taking lives. It wasn’t like Roy was a serial killer. But he’d take it nonetheless if it meant Oliver would wake the hell up. Figures, he was definetly dramatic enough for a coma.

He balanced his bow on his bent knee, making a fist and squeezing it with his other hand as he took a few deep breaths. Listening for the warbling screech that meant another wave of aliens. Listening for gunshots that would mean Jay had spotted them first. Listening for anything that meant get off his ass and start shooting unless he wanted to be a red stain on a Star City sidewalk.

Roy flicked his head in an unsuccessful attempt to get the drying gore out of his hair, still clenching his fist in his other hand. The two french braids Stephanie had put in yesterday were doing wonders for keeping it away from his face, but trapped a lot of blood spray in the twisted strands. If you could call the chunky, bluish-purple liquid blood.

He let go of his hand and repeated on the other side. It was an old trick Oliver had taught him. Frankly, Roy had no idea how it worked or why, but he wasn’t about to question it when he needed it to work its magic. They’d never be able to make it right if they both died.

Jay’s gun cracked a block or two over, the sound echoing. He let go, splaying his fingers and examining them.

The slightest tremor still remained in his fingers. Better, barely even noticeable. He could work with that; it was a vast improvement from the earthquake shakes that had gone from wrists to fingertips of prior.

Oliver would be fine. Because if he died, Roy was going to kill him.

**Author's Note:**

> (Reupload due to new account)  
> Ahhhhh it's my first Whumptober actually participating. Not totally in love with this fic, but here we are.


End file.
